IMMIGRANT CITIZENSHIP PASSPORTS; HUMANITY RETRACING ITS STEP!
PROLOGUE- From Canada to Australia, New Zealand to United States, Germany to UAE, United Kingdom and now to South Korea, the world continues to witness the era of naturalization and citizenship status to worthy foreign immigrants. You might argue that it is a symbiotic relationship that benefits the host country and the migrant, but I dare say that it is as natural as what really makes us humans.
Geography teaches us that our world is spherical- thus what goes around comes around. The science of anthropology which studies human behavior, biology, cultures and societies over time reveal the inherent nature of our species to always trace its step back to its origin. Biology exposes the fact that the decomposition of organic matter is what gives life to plants and animals and religion illuminates us with the knowledge that from God we came and to him we shall return or simply put- from the earth we came and to it we shall return.
Thousands of years back, nomadic life is what really ensured our survival as a species. Our ancestors, in search of food, water and safety from harm changed their locations several times until they found the ideal places to settle. Wars displaced some from their initial settlement and diseases or pandemics drove many away. The books of history are filled with several military expeditions to claim a land filled with resources by the superior power and we would also find out that generations lost their homelands due to the continuous oppressions of a domineering power.
Just like there were people living on the banks of river Niger before Mungo park gave it the name, it is no secret that there were people living in America before Christopher Columbus claimed the discovery of the virgin land in 1492. Ask from those who were the founding fathers of your town, city, nation or country, you would be told that the place came to be after an individual left his original point of settlement and found solace in the place you proudly call home today. In fact, no one is truly a son of the soil he so boastfully claims but a progeny of a migrant who left their homeland.
The Yorubas, Jews, Arabs, Fulanis, Eskimos, Mongols, Aborigins, Maoris and almost all tribes of the world, have folklores that indicate their migratory ancestry. Even the Ethiopians considered themselves the lost tribe of Israel with a blackened face. Old cities like Athens (Greece), Aleppo (Syria), Faiyum (Egypt) all have dates they began and the places where these founding fathers came from also had a name. This begs the question! Maybe humans are now going back to what they used to be.
For students of history, there was nothing like the artificial demarcations on the world map called countries a couple hundred of years ago. The issuance of passports which dates back to the time of King Henry V of England in (1413–1422) — as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands; maintained during WW1 — for security reasons, and to control the emigration of people with useful skills; and cemented in the Paris Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through Tickets of 1920, among many other reasons is a deliberate attempt to demarcate the world between the powerful and the subjugated. It is also not a secret that the arbitral borders now known as countries in Africa today became began taking shape at the Berlin conference of 1885. And this is not more than a century and half years ago (136 years). This same colonial imperialistic oppression was also imposed upon countries in Asia.
The fact that these powerful nations are now seeing the need to issue citizenship to those who came to the country for greener pastures and who can contribute meaningfully to the progress of the society dates back to the beginning of our years.
A striking thought that comes to mind is that give or take, the world still has a few hundred years to go and there might be a total collapse of the status quo in the world as we know it. The indentations of these artificial lines might soon fade away and our chicken might soon come home to roost. As it is being said that the world is a global village, this might soon not be expressed literarily but might become a reality of the fact that the earth, no matter the place, climate or time belongs to us all. As long as I can find shelter in the new abode and I can respect the cultures that be, I should be able to thrive. This might be the wishes of an optimist but if anything, Coronavirus has taught us that time and tides are an ever-changing variable.